Evaluating the Flop

The flop is a crucial point in any poker hand. Regardless of your pre-flop strength, you must re-evaluate your two hole cards based on how they fit with the three cards on the board. Now your hand might be the “nuts” (i.e. the best possible holding), completely worthless, or somewhere in between those extremes. This will guide your strategy for playing the hand.

Flopping Made Hands

Flopping a made hand doesn’t happen too often, but when it does it’s a huge opportunity to build (and hopefully take down) a sizeable pot. Quite simply, a made hand is already complete on the flop. It has the possibility to improve, but doesn’t necessarily need to in order to hold up at showdown. Flopped straights, flushes, full houses, and quads are all made hands, as are sets, two pair, or one pair.

Made hands can be categorized into four levels:

Very strong hands: Two pair or better
Strong hands: Overpair or Top pair top kicker
Mediocre hands: Any other pair
Trash: Anything else

Very Strong Hands

If the flop comes and your hand is now two pair or better, you’ve got a very strong holding. Remember, that that two pair in this category means that each of your hole cards pairs with a card on the board. A pair showing on the board (referred to as an “open pair”) doesn’t count for this category.

Here are some examples:

	YOUR CARDS	FLOP
1.	QhJh	Ah9h3h <- flush. Very strong hand.
2.	KsQs	KdQd5h <- two pair. Very strong hand.
3.	AhTd	As4c4d <-open pair. Doesn’t count.

If you’re fortunate enough to flop a very strong hand, you will be ahead of your opponents in almost all cases. Therefore, you’ll probably want to play very aggressively and almost never fold.

Strong Hands

A strong hand is made up of an overpair, or top pair with top kicker. An overpair is a pocket pair (which is a pair made up of your two hole cards) that has a higher rank than any cards on the board. For example, if your hole cards are QQ and the flop comes T73, you’ve got an overpair. Top pair means one of your hole cards pairs with the highest card showing on the board.

The kicker is an unpaired card that will be used to determine the winner if your opponent has the same-ranked hand as you. Imagine that your hole cards are AK and your opponent’s hole cards are AT. The flop comes A73. You’ve got a pair of aces, but the king is a higher kicker than the ten. So your hand is the winner.

You are still ahead in most situations with a strong hand, but it’s less of a sure thing than a very strong hand. Therefore, you should play aggressively, but be more careful. If the game is deep stacked and you face a huge raise, you might even fold.

Mediocre Hands

Any other pair is considered a mediocre hand. Your action depends on your exact holding, the number of opponents and the “texture” of the flop. Flops are not created equal - some are “wet” or draw-heavy, while others are “dry” and uncoordinated.

For example, holding JJ against multiple opponents with a wet board of [Qd][Js][As] is definitely mediocre. There’s a fair chance that one the opponents has a better pair and/or a flush draw. You don’t want to take big risks with this hand.

In contrast, holding T9 against a single opponent with a dry board of [9d][3s][6c] is stronger. You’ve got top pair, so your opponent would need a higher-ranked pocket pair (overpair) to be ahead. Your kicker is not good, but your opponent is unlikely to be playing a starting hand with a 9 and an uncoordinated higher kicker.

Trash

Flopping trash is exactly what it sounds like. Your hand is worthless and should be discarded (i.e. folded). That’s because you have almost no hope of winning the hand if it reaches a showdown. You can sometimes win by inducing opponents to fold a superior hand, so you might bluff with trash once in a while.